#shhh I know the banner is very cheesy I was leaning into it

[the-lonelybarricade]

Till Death Do Us Part - SJMRW

Here is one of my contributions to @sjmromanceweek for Day 4: Feelings Realization.

Summary: Feyre is sick on Valentines Day, throwing her Grim Reaper husband's plan into disarray

Read on AO3 ・Till Death Do Us Part Masterlist

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Feyre’s mouth was uncomfortably dry.

She groaned, rolling over onto her back with a wince. It felt as though someone had jammed a tambourine into her skull, the way it rattled as she moved. Her entire body felt stiff, a wrung-out towel left too long to dry in the sun. Absently, her hand sought the other side of the bed. She didn’t realize until her hand hit the cold fabric that she had been searching for someone. And that finding the space beside her empty left her feeling oddly disappointed.

Odd, because it wasn’t as though she shared a bed with her husband. He usually slept on the sofa—if he even slept at all. The life of a Death God was a busy one, though he’d explained to her once that he didn’t need to be present for every death.

“Then why do you bother?” She’d asked him, at a time when she’d still felt bitter about the ring cemented to her finger.

He’d had that look in his eye, that underlying sadness she’d identified on the day she met him. “Because so many innocent souls die every day, Feyre. And I don’t think they deserve to die alone.”

It was something she thought about often. How she had been brought back to life because the one thing the God of Death was willing to barter for was companionship. How he found loneliness so harrowing that he devoted his life to ensuring innocent mortals wouldn’t need to touch it in their final moments. Though he didn’t go to every death, he went to many. Particularly the most tragic. And sometimes he returned looking so burdened that Feyre could only imagine the things he’d witnessed.

Children, heroes, activists—so many good people died every day and she was the one the Grim Reaper had decided to bring back. Sometimes she felt so embarrassed about the days she gazed upon her ring with resentment.

Suffice to say, their marriage was complicated.

Today, she looked at the empty side of the bed and digested this strange, unexpected sadness. It was many things, she decided. Not all to do with wanting to share a bed with her husband. Today was Valentine's Day. A day that was supposed to be meaningful in a conventional marriage but to Feyre, was just another day. Another day where she felt like absolute shit.

Feyre shifted upwards, again jostling that tambourine in her head. The clamor was so intrusive that she had to clench her teeth while she raised her body through the pain. A glance at the clock showed she’d woken up an hour before her alarm, likely from the pressure threatening to burst behind her eyes. Feyre sniffed, finding the passageway blocked. Today was definitely going to be a sick day.

Except her phone was not on her bedside table where she usually kept it, which made it very difficult to call her boss. Feyre searched the floor, wondering if it had been knocked off the table in the night, but there was no sign of it.

With a huff, Feyre dragged her body out of bed and slung on a dressing gown. She felt remarkably fragile, her shoulders hunched as she walked into the kitchen like every step fell upon shattered glass.

Her husband was awake, back turned to her as he manned a crackling stove, his elbow angled in to flip the contents without a spatula. For some reason, he wasn’t wearing a shirt. It was an effort for Feyre not to pay that fact notice, particularly when she could track the way his muscles shifted with the movements of the pan.

Now her mouth felt dry for an entirely different reason.

“Rhys?” she croaked. “What are you doing?”

Rhysand turned, wide grin fading when he caught sight of her. Suddenly, he vanished from his place at the stove, causing Feyre to jump when he reappeared before her.

“You’re unwell,” he said, sounding dismayed. The cool back of his knuckles pressed against her forehead, assessing the severity of her condition. Rhysand frowned. “You have a fever.”

“I’ll live,” she said dismissively.

Rhysand’s lips twitched. “That’s not something I can typically assure mortals.”

“Would you let me die from a little fever?”

“And let you out of our bargain so soon? Of course not.” He grinned, leaning closer to whisper, “Though if you keep throwing yourself at my mercy, I’m going to begin to think you enjoy it.”

There was a sensual note to his voice that turned her insides molten. Feyre shivered, but she assured herself that was because of the fever and not the impact of his words. Rhysand, whose infinite flirtations were rarely successful, seemed to think so as well, because the amusement faded.

“C’mere,” he murmured, and then he was lifting her into his arms.

“Rhys!” Strong arms swept behind her legs, heaving her upwards so that she was bundled against him in a mockery of a bridal carry. She pounded her fists contemptuously against his hard chest. “Put me down!”

He didn’t listen. Each weak fist only spread his smile wider, so irritatingly endeared by her defiance that it only enraged Feyre more, until she was beating at his torso incessantly and Rhysand was tipping back his head in outright laughter. It was becoming another vicious cycle of their marriage.

“My legs work fine,” she grumbled once she was deposited on the couch. Rhysand ignored that too, in favor of producing a pile of blankets from God knows where to tuck them around her.

She wondered, once she was subdued in the makeshift cocoon of blankets, if it wasn’t so much an act of nurturing as it was a means of restraining her. Rhys was staring at her, head tilted to the side so that his black hair flopped every-so-slightly across his forehead.

“I don’t know how to look after sick mortals,” he admitted. “It’s usually too late by the time I have anything to do with them.”

“You don’t need to look after me.” Feyre craned her head back towards the stove, wary of the smoke rising from the pan he’d abandoned. “If you’re in need of something to look after, try the food you were cooking.”

Rhysand sighed, drawing Feyre’s attention back to his face. For a moment, she thought he looked truly disappointed. “I was trying to make you breakfast in bed.” His voice carried across the room as he returned to the sizzling pan. “According to the television, that’s something that a husband should do for his wife on Valentine's Day.”

“And your shirt?” She asked incredulously, craning her head to sneak another peak of his toned, brown skin while he wasn’t paying attention.

“The husbands are usually shirtless on the television. I thought it was customary.” He frowned thoughtfully. “It seems like a strange tradition. Human skin is so sensitive to hot oil, so I don't understand why they would expose so much of it while cooking.”

Feyre couldn’t help a small giggle at the realization that he was being serious. “Is the concept of eye candy unfamiliar to Death Gods?”

“Oh, certainly not,” Rhysand said. She could hear the smile in his voice. “I believe, being married to you, I am intimately familiar with the concept. But why should I be shirtless, if you are asleep and therefore not around to appreciate it?”

“Mortal television isn’t always… practical,” she admitted.

Rhysand chuckled. “Nor are mortals themselves.”

He came around the sofa then, balancing a bed tray that carried a plate of browned, richly seasoned vegetables topped with two eggs that had been fried in the shape of a heart. “Eggs and vegetable hash,” he declared proudly, setting the tray securely in her lap. “I learned it from an angry man on the food channel. Though, now I fear that I should have made you soup.”

Steam wafted from the tray, caressing Feyre’s cheek with its heat. She was certain it would smell incredible if her nose wasn’t stuffed. It certainly looked incredible. The eggs shaped in hearts… it was a detail he hadn’t needed to commit to. She’d never received breakfast in bed before, she would have been ecstatic with a piece of toast.

“Are you not feeling up to it?” He asked. If he was bothered by her reserved reaction, it was overridden by the concern drawn plainly on his face. “I can get you something else. I know your sister used to buy you ginger ale when you were unwell.”

Feyre made an odd sound in the back of her throat. He said that he had seen her life on the day she’d died, and now he had a knack for calling forth memories she was unprepared for. “That was for nausea,” she said. It was all that twelve year old Elain had been able to afford at the time.

“Humans experience such a variety of ailments,” he said, clearly displeased by how little he knew of the subject. “Do you not have an appetite? I could make you some tea—“

“This is perfect, Rhys.” Her voice was strained, spilling out of a crack in a dam she’d built long before she’d met the Grim Reaper. She hoped he would dismiss it as part of her illness. “Thank you.”

“I’ll make you some tea as well,” he decided, before disappearing back into the kitchen.

“Have you seen my phone?” She called, still staring at the breakfast he’d made for her. “I need to call in sick.”

“Already done.”

“Done?” she echoed, wary of what that meant.

“Yes,” he hummed, reappearing on the sofa beside her, her phone pinched between a pair of long, elegant fingers. She promptly took it from him, finding to her dismay that there had been an outgoing call an hour before she’d woken up. “I called your boss and informed her that your doting husband has a very romantic day planned. Unfortunately, now my plans might need to take a, how you say, rain check?”

Feyre could only imagine how his early morning phone call was perceived. As the Grim Reaper, he commanded an unsettling presence, and his unusual—and often subtly threatening—behavior hardly helped.

“Rhys.” She pinched the bridge of her nose, taking a deep breath through her mouth. “You can’t just call my boss and demand I have the day off. There’s a process for these things, I need to get days off approved ahead of time.”

“She didn’t seem to mind,” he said, entirely unconcerned that he may have breached convention. Feyre thought hopelessly that the rules of human etiquette would never be able to confine her husband.

“She thinks you’re a crime lord.” Feyre shook her head, smothering her exasperation in an effort to recognize the intent behind it: he had planned them something special for Valentine’s Day. Had gone out of his way, and exerted far more effort than she’d ever been the recipient of. Her eyes swiveled, again, to the heart shaped eggs. “You really planned an entire day for us?”

“Of course I did.”

So simple, so absolute.

Feyre sniffed. Rhysand probably thought it was because of the congestion.

“I took the day off too,” he continued. “I booked us a private dining room at Searcys.” Feyre nearly choked. It was best for her blood pressure not to inquire as to how he’d managed that. Or what he’d paid. ”And I was going to—well, nevermind.” Rhys seemed to have only just gauged her expression. He assured her quietly, “We can do all of that another day.”

But her eyes weren’t stinging because they couldn’t go. It was that he’d even bothered. Without fully registering the motion, Feyre reached for his hand. Rhysand looked surprised that she was initiating touch, even moreso when she choked, “Thank you.”

Agitated by the sight of her tears, Rhysand squeezed her hand, almost pleading, “What can I do?”

Nothing. She caught herself before the words came out, taking a moment to reassess why she was so hell bent on pushing him away. It was true their marriage had been far from anything she’d planned. When they’d made their bargain, she hadn’t known it was what she was agreeing to. But even if he had stated his terms more plainly, would she have refused him?

He’d brought her back to life.

And on top of that, he had been nothing but loving and patient and kind.

Rhysand had tricked her, certainly, but she had gotten far more than she’d given. And maybe… Maybe he hadn’t been the only one suffering from loneliness all those years. Maybe he had chosen her because he’d stared into her soul and seen a kindred spirit.

“Come here,” she said, setting the tray on the armrest so she could unwrap the blankets from around her body, opening them up to make room for him.

Her husband stared, brows pressing together as he tried to dissect her meaning.

Feyre felt more than a little guilty that it was such a foreign gesture to him. Using their entwined hands, she tugged him forward, until he hesitantly climbed toward her.

“This… is what you want?”

She assured herself it was the fever making her face hot. “Mortals call it cuddling.”

“Cuddling,” he repeated. Feyre knew he was familiar with the word, just not the action. Despite how she had once promised to show him what she could do with her “pretty mouth”, she had so far treated him as nothing more than a platonic roommate. And despite his constant flirtations, he had let her.

Rhysand maneuvered himself on the couch until he was settled behind her and Feyre was practically sitting in his lap. “Like this?”

His warmth was somehow more soothing than the blanket, which had not possessed the scent of citrus and the sea. Even through her block nose, she could smell it, could feel it surrounding her. Who would have thought that the God of Death would smell like a stormy day on an Atlantic beachfront? She could almost close her eyes and imagine the seagulls overhead, hear the tide chopping against the shore, feel the wind stirring at her hair with gentle curiosity.

“You smell good,” she whispered.

A moment of awed silence. Then, “What do I smell like?”

“Holywell Bay, in Cornwall.”

His arm slid around her chest, pulling her tighter against the front of his body. “Yeah?”

“My aunt took my sisters and I there once, when we were kids.”

Rhysand hummed. “My scent is meant to be comforting to mortals. To remind them of their favorite memories.” He paused, then added, “Your scent evokes the same for me.”

“It does?”

His nose skimmed the curve of her neck. “You smell of lilac and pear. Of my wife. Every memory with her is my favorite.”

Sweet talker. It was nothing new, but somehow the words felt more intimate when she could feel his breath coast over her shoulder—warm, like he was truly a living being. Feyre shook her head. “Even though I have been so… so covered in thorns?”

“I do not mind thorns,” he said simply. Soft lips found the juncture between her neck and shoulder, testing. Waiting for reproach. When there was none, he kissed her skin again, so sweetly she thought she might burst into tears. “Though this memory, in particular, is my favorite. I like cuddling my wife.”

She liked cuddling him, too, but that seemed too far a step to admit to just yet. Rhysand readjusted the blankets around them, then pulled the tray of food back into Feyre’s lap, gently urging her to eat. It was an effort. The food was lovely, but every swallow scraped past her sore throat. She knew Rhysand noticed her wincing. Judging by the way his grip gradually tightened, each bite seemed to spiral him into increasing distress.

Feyre had made it about halfway through the meal before her husband and the tray disappeared entirely.

“Rhys?”

The kitchen was devoid of her fretting husband. Feyre frowned, uncertain where he could have gone so suddenly. She folded the blankets back around her shoulders, noting that she already missed his touch.

Soon he returned, materializing from thin air in the center of their living room. He clutched a brown paper bag in each of his hands, which he set down on the coffee table. “I went to New York City,” he said, fishing out large plastic containers. “I heard on the television that they have good soup there. I didn’t know which kind you’d like, so I got as many as I could. Chicken noodle. Lobster bisque. Chowder. Leak and potato—”

“Rhsyand.”

“I picked up some stuff from the pharmacy, too,” he said, retrieving a box of lozenges and paracetamol. He paused. “Why are you laughing?”

Shoulders shaking, Feyre held up her hand in response. She required a moment to catch her breath, especially once her laughter fizzled into a cough that had Rhysand looking miserable. Eventually, Feyre wheezed, “I didn’t realize I was married to such a mother hen.” He pouted. The God of Death actually pouted. “Give me the chicken noodle soup.”

At this, he perked up, handing Feyre the carton of soup and a biodegradable spoon. Because not only was the Grim Reaper a doting mother hen, he was also environmentally conscious. He watched with overbearing interest as she raised the first spoonful to her mouth, obnoxiously hopeful that he had pleased her.

The warm liquid was instantly soothing and like all the gestures that had come before, it softened her to him. “Thank you,” she said, meaning it more than she accurately knew how to express. “Why don’t you come sit with me? We can cuddle and watch movies together.”

“You want to cuddle again?” he asked, like he couldn’t believe it. Feyre nodded. “And… staying at home, watching television… this is an agreeable Valentine's Day to you?”

Feyre nodded again, moving aside on the couch to make room for him. “That is a perfect Valentine’s Day to me.”

The sofa shifted with her husband’s weight as he sat down beside her. They arranged themselves until she was against lounging upright in his lap, sipping on the soup from New York City while they watched romantic comedies together—which he found to be a fascinating study on human culture. His hands traced slow, lazy patterns over her skin, effective in making Feyre wonder why she’d denied his touch for so long.

At some point, she fell asleep with her face nestled into the nook of his neck and when he carried her into the bedroom to tuck her into bed, Feyre sleepily grabbed at his shirt and asked him to stay.

“I’m sorry I didn’t get you anything,” she murmured. Her fever-ridden sleep had lowered her inhibitions, and now there was nothing to stop her from nuzzling into her husband's chest. She could hear her own heartbeat in her ear and imagined that it was his, though the God of Death did not have a heart. Not one that beat, anyhow.

“What do you mean?” His hands slid into her hair, cradling her head as his fingers provided slow, soothing strokes against her scalp. “You gave me everything I could possibly want.” Feyre muttered something unintelligible into his chest, and he laughed. “Happy Valentine’s Day, wife.”

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Rhys.”